Morocco energy profile
Morocco — from 90% import-dependent to a solar pioneer
>90%
Energy historically imported (2020, IEA)
582 MW
Noor Ouarzazate — world's largest CSP complex
~45%
Electricity from renewables (early 2025)
56% by 2027
Revised renewable target (up from 52% by 2030)
Noor Ouarzazate — visible from space
The world's largest concentrated solar power complex
Why Morocco built it:
Morocco has almost no domestic oil, gas, or coal, and was among the most import-dependent countries in the world for energy — leaving it exposed to volatile global fuel prices. The 2009 Moroccan Solar Plan set out to change that, targeting 2 GW of solar capacity backed by roughly $9 billion in investment, taking advantage of exceptional solar conditions: around 3,000 hours of sunshine a year, rising to 3,600 in the desert.
Morocco has almost no domestic oil, gas, or coal, and was among the most import-dependent countries in the world for energy — leaving it exposed to volatile global fuel prices. The 2009 Moroccan Solar Plan set out to change that, targeting 2 GW of solar capacity backed by roughly $9 billion in investment, taking advantage of exceptional solar conditions: around 3,000 hours of sunshine a year, rising to 3,600 in the desert.
What was built:
Noor Ouarzazate, near the town of the same name, was built in four phases between 2016 and 2018 — Noor I (160 MW CSP), Noor II (200 MW CSP), Noor III (150 MW CSP with a solar tower), and Noor IV (72 MW photovoltaic) — for a combined 582 MW across roughly 3,000 hectares, using around 2 million mirrors, making it visible from space. Led by a consortium under Saudi Arabia's ACWA Power and financed in part by the World Bank, the European Investment Bank, and Germany's KfW, the complex is estimated to power over a million Moroccans while cutting the country's oil consumption by roughly 2.5 million tonnes a year.
Noor Ouarzazate, near the town of the same name, was built in four phases between 2016 and 2018 — Noor I (160 MW CSP), Noor II (200 MW CSP), Noor III (150 MW CSP with a solar tower), and Noor IV (72 MW photovoltaic) — for a combined 582 MW across roughly 3,000 hectares, using around 2 million mirrors, making it visible from space. Led by a consortium under Saudi Arabia's ACWA Power and financed in part by the World Bank, the European Investment Bank, and Germany's KfW, the complex is estimated to power over a million Moroccans while cutting the country's oil consumption by roughly 2.5 million tonnes a year.
Noor III — solar power after dark
Molten-salt storage, and a costly 2024 setback
How the storage works:
Unlike a standard photovoltaic panel, Noor III is a solar tower design: thousands of mirrors focus sunlight onto a central tower to heat molten salt, which retains heat efficiently enough to keep producing steam — and therefore electricity — for hours after sunset. This is what lets CSP plants like Noor III supply power into the evening demand peak, something conventional solar PV cannot do without separate battery storage.
Unlike a standard photovoltaic panel, Noor III is a solar tower design: thousands of mirrors focus sunlight onto a central tower to heat molten salt, which retains heat efficiently enough to keep producing steam — and therefore electricity — for hours after sunset. This is what lets CSP plants like Noor III supply power into the evening demand peak, something conventional solar PV cannot do without separate battery storage.
The 2024 leak:
In 2024, Noor III suffered a molten-salt leak, reported to have cost the plant's owner an estimated $47 million — a reminder that molten-salt CSP storage, while effective, involves handling salts at very high temperatures through complex piping systems, and remains a less mature, more failure-prone technology than simpler forms of energy storage. The plant has continued operating as part of the wider Noor complex.
In 2024, Noor III suffered a molten-salt leak, reported to have cost the plant's owner an estimated $47 million — a reminder that molten-salt CSP storage, while effective, involves handling salts at very high temperatures through complex piping systems, and remains a less mature, more failure-prone technology than simpler forms of energy storage. The plant has continued operating as part of the wider Noor complex.
Questions
Questions about Moroccan energy
Why did Morocco choose concentrated solar power (CSP) with molten-salt storage instead of cheaper photovoltaic panels?
The short answer is timing and the specific problem Morocco needed to solve. When the Moroccan Solar Plan was designed around 2009-2012, photovoltaic panel prices hadn't yet fallen to today's levels, and CSP with thermal storage offered something PV alone couldn't at the time: the ability to keep generating electricity for hours after sunset, using stored heat rather than a separate battery system. That mattered because Morocco's electricity demand, like most countries', peaks in the evening — exactly when solar PV output drops to zero. Noor III's molten-salt tower design solves this by storing the sun's heat directly, at a scale and duration that battery storage in the mid-2010s couldn't match economically. The tradeoff is that CSP is mechanically far more complex than PV — mirrors must track the sun precisely, salt must be kept molten and pumped through hundreds of kilometres of piping without leaking (the 2024 incident is a reminder that this isn't trivial), and the whole system costs more per megawatt than PV. That's part of why Noor IV, the complex's final and newest phase, switched to conventional photovoltaic — by 2018, PV costs had fallen enough that it made more sense for that additional capacity, even without the after-dark generation CSP provides. Source: SolarPACES · ESMAP (World Bank) · Wikipedia (Ouarzazate Solar Power Station).
Provenance
Attribution and citation
- Sources
- ESMAP (World Bank) · ScienceDirect renewable energy review (2025) · Morocco World News · SolarPACES · Wikipedia (Ouarzazate Solar Power Station; Solar power in Morocco) · IEA
- Cite as
- "Morocco Energy Profile — Complete Reference", The Energy Codex, https://thecodex.expert/energy/countries/morocco/, last updated .